


The Affair

by kinklock



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Humor, Courtship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, Gardener Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Praise Kink, gardener nanny era but with a hotter gardener look, mostly humor. basically slapstick, oh the rituals they are intricate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:06:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20111854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinklock/pseuds/kinklock
Summary: The nanny and the gardener are having an affair. Or, so rumour has it.(aka the one where the Dowlings & all their staff think the nanny and the gardener are involved, and Crowley and Aziraphale… decide to go along with it. For reasons.)





	The Affair

**Author's Note:**

> There's a lot happening here and all of it chaotic, which I think is very sexy of me. 
> 
> Many & much & extra thanks to the beta readers who valiantly tried to get me to make sense, Robin, Abby, Brooke, Pyxy, thank you thank you, and to Harry, who was forced to weigh in on things like garden parties and genitalia.

The Adoptive Mother of the Antichrist, a fact unbeknownst to her, is not doing a very good job at containing her amusement. She smiles and laughs over the breakfast table, loud enough to be heard from the Long Gallery, and for her Husband-Man to lower his tablet and ask with unbecoming exasperation, “What is it?” 

“Nothing. Oh, nothing at all.”

Another laugh behind a hand. The tablet hits the table.

“Well, if you really want to know.” She leans in, though there’s still ten feet of table between them, and in a whisper louder than her regular speaking voice says, “The nanny and the gardener are having  _ an affair _ .” 

The tablet goes back up. “Is that all?”

“Is that all? I couldn’t believe it! Granted, the gardener we have now is much better looking than the last one, so one does imagine him getting into affairs.” 

“Poor Brother Francis. We can’t all be lookers.” 

"But that nanny! She’s so dour. I pictured her as more of an old maid.” 

“Right.” The Husband-Man clears his throat, attention back to the news. “Are either of them married?”

“No. Well, maybe. The gardener seems married. But I mean that they’re doing it— _ in secret. _ Without wanting anyone to find out. _ ”  _ For dramatic effect, the Adoptive Mother of the Antichrist lifts up the salt and pepper shakers in a rude pantomime, and at that point, Crowley has had enough. 

The  _ nanny _ in question slips away from the cracked open door before he has to see or hear any more. As the  _ dour old maid _ lifts up his trailing skirt, slouches down the Long Gallery past the unsmiling portraits, and long-legs it out a ground floor window, he can’t help but wish that the overheard gossip was in any way the truth. 

“An old maid,” Crowley says in falsetto as he walks across the lawn, heels sinking into the dirt. “I’ll have her know I’m an eligible young lady! Well, maybe not so young. Or a lady. But eligible!"

Aziraphale, tending to an oddly shaped shrub nearby, pumps his fist up in the air twice in support. 

“Pip, pip! Sorry, what are you eligible for?” 

“You! This is all your fault.” 

Aziraphale’s face falls like he's dropped an ice lolly. Crowley would know—he’s seen Aziraphale drop one before. The threat of tears had been real and Crowley had been forced to miracle him a new one, with an extra one besides. Just in case he dropped one again. 

“Me?” Aziraphale says as if he has no idea. "I don’t even know what we’re talking about.” 

“You couldn’t just use a normal hired help costume. You had to come here the first time looking absolutely ridiculous, and then you had to go and get fingered in a local murder case—“

“It’s not my fault the primary witness saw an orange man with buck teeth and mutton chops!“

“—and now you’ve had to show up again with a new gardener concept looking like, like, like…” The more Crowley says the word "like” the less it sounds like the word “like" and more like  _ lake _ or  _ look, _ and then sputters. Words can be hard sometimes. Eventually, he hisses, “Like that!”

Aziraphale looks down at himself. “My clothes are causing you distress?” 

Crowley groans at the sky. 

The white linen shirt open at the top, exposing Aziraphale’s collar bones for all and sundry to see, is the start of it, though Crowley had brought that on himself. Aziraphale had initially tried to incorporate a bow tie into the outfit, along with a pocket square, and Crowley had made a remark about it, and now there were  _ nude _ collar bones. Meanwhile, the pocket square had survived, which did something offensively complementary with Aziraphale’s eyes. Then there were the suspenders, no, no, never mind, don’t get him started on the suspenders, not the ones framing his soft belly perfectly and holding up trousers straining over those thighs… He is staring at Aziraphale's thighs. Aziraphale is staring at him. Crowley looks away. He points at the shrub. 

“What is that anyway?”

“Oh, it’s Sister Slug. Isn’t she lovely?” 

Crowley tips his head sideways, but the shrub remains a grotesque oblong even from the new angle. If it were Crowley gardening, he’d cut it down and start from scratch. Crowley actually is a gardener, unlike Aziraphale, who didn’t even like to get his hands dirty, and wore the same gloves he used to turn pages to use pruners. But Aziraphale does not know he is a bad gardener. He beams over his accomplishment as though a slug-shrub were a beautiful thing. 

“Never mind,” Crowley says. “It’s offensive that the humans would more readily believe you’re the one getting into mischief all over the estate when I’m—” His balance shifts backward as his boot heels sink deeper into the grass, and Crowley has to hike his legs up underneath his skirt to dislodge them. “Can’t you get firmer lawn around here?” 

“You could stand on the dirt path with me. It’s firmer.”

Crowley lifts up his legs faster. He can’t stand on the  _ path _ ; it’s the principle of the thing. 

“As for mischief,” Aziraphale continues, “I’m certainly not the one leaving rakes all over the place if that’s what you’re referring to. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but rakes seem to appear and disappear at random across the lawn, sometimes even inside. Oddly, prior to their appearance, I seem to recall the lady of the house saying she would like to drive a rake through one of her husband’s Secret Service agents.”

Crowley sniggers. “Well, you know. Availability. Not a successful tempt as of yet, but tomorrow’s another day. To say nothing of everyone stepping on them.”

Aziraphale smiles shyly. “Strangely enough, I haven’t stepped on  _ any. _ The rakes scuttlebug out of the way whenever I come close to them. I wonder why that is.” 

_ “‘Scuttlebug?’” _

“Who thinks I’m getting into mischief, Crowley?”

“The lady of the house,” Crowley drawls. “Thinks we’re having an—” Would it be too much to say that out loud? Can he really just come out and say that, out loud? Not after the Too Fast Incident of 1967, that would be bad,  _ fast _ , Crowley has to go slowly, crawly, has to finish his sentence. Has he been silent for too long? 

“She thinks we are entangled?" Aziraphale asks. So he got it anyway. Not so innocent after all?

Crowley waggles his eyebrows. 

“Oh, dear. I hope this doesn't mean I lose my position. Soon they might give up on having a gardener altogether.” 

“Don’t be silly. How would they whittle down all the wildlife?” But then, maybe Aziraphale had a point. They had cut back Crowley’s nannying hours considerably. Only had to pin his curls thrice a week as of late. 

“We’ll need to dispel those rumours at once,” Aziraphale says, “but, oh my. It was already hard enough for us to discuss little Warlock. We need to discuss his progression  _ in either direction _ and how do we continue meeting without increased scrutiny? Will we have to rendezvous on the bus? There are so many people on buses.” 

“We can still talk, angel. They’ll just think it’s about something else.” 

“But everyone’s going to be eavesdropping on us now! The American Secret Service is rife with gossip. And I’m not supposed to let humans overhear the particulars. There’ll be trouble.”

As if to prove his point, Crowley catches a lone Secret Service agent spying on them from the window Crowley recently climbed out of. News travels fast. Not speaking to Aziraphale while keeping this job—very bad. This gig allowed them to see each other more often than they possibly ever had, and he didn’t want to be separated because humans had gotten thoughts in their heads. Crowley hadn’t thought of that. Now he has to think.  _ Think _ . 

“Is it my look? Be honest, Crowley. Is it too roguish?”

Crowley eyes the pink pocket square folded and tucked neatly into Aziraphale’s white linen shirt, and the eyeshadow dabbed on his lids. 

“Yeah, yeah, too roguish. That’s definitely it.”

Aziraphale wrings his hands. “I do hope this doesn’t mean I have to leave altogether. There’s always my magician act, but that only applies to parties, and I’m still working on my newest trick.” 

“Trick. Ah, that’s the ticket, angel!”

“Is it really? You’ve changed your tune since the last time."

“Not that, that’s disgusting, you kill the bird every time. I mean we can trick the humans. You know, speak about the boy around here, but in code. Heaven goes in for speaking in code around humans, don’t they?” 

“Why not!” Aziraphale says, delighted. “A secret code. What will it be?”

“Something that won’t raise suspicion, seeing as you’re so worried. Phrases they expect to hear.”

“Right, yes, of course.” Aziraphale looks puzzled. “Like what, exactly? What do nannies and gardeners speak about with one another?” 

Crowley gives him a look. “Well, this specific nanny and this specific gardener…”

“Are in passions! Yes, I see. We can speak, uh, clandestinely, in the language of romance, you mean. But we won’t quell the gossip that way.”

Crowley might point out that they’ve been meeting clandestinely since before language, but instead he raises his heels from the grass. Freed at last. 

Crowley settles on: “No, I don’t suppose we’ll  _ quell _ much of anything.”

“I wonder what the Authorities would think if they saw…” Aziraphale scrunches his face into a pout of indecision. “But, they only care about results. Then again, one never knows when they’ll check in.” 

“An Affair would just be an extension of the Arrangement,” Crowley says. “And we’ve already gotten away with that for long enough. It’s the humans we need to worry about.” Crowley almost believes himself. What could go wrong? 

Before the Secret Service agent can get any ideas about sneaking over to hide behind a nearby hedge, Crowley uses his newfound freedom to leave. He promptly steps on a rake and smacks himself in the shoulder. 

“Really, my dear. You didn’t magic the rakes to avoid you?” 

“Shut it!”

  
  


+

  
  


A knock at Warlock’s door interrupts Crowley mid-diatribe about the plague. And he had just been getting to the good part. 

“Hullo!” Aziraphale says, popping his head in. The gardening look has been expanded on: orange leaves stick out from his hair, a rose is looped through his buttonhole, and there’s a whisper of a beard. Good Satan. “Hope I’m not interrupting any bedtime stories!” 

“We were doing history homework,” Crowley says. 

“I’m too old for stories,” Warlock says, “and nannies.”

This is why they’d been cutting his hours. 

“And what does the gardener need of us this evening?” Crowley asks, vigorously dipping his head towards the boy. What was Aziraphale doing up here?

Aziraphale clears his throat. “Just wanted to _tell_ _someone_ I was off for the night before I head out and—are those curlers?”

Crowley raises a hand to his hair. “I was called over last minute and I have to set them with heat or sleep with them in.” Why was he telling him this? 

“Ah, a bit of a rush job, then? It’s true that I hadn’t been expecting you here this evening—not that I, as a gardener, expect nannies, but the pink looks very nice—” 

“I’ll be right back, dear,” Crowley tells the boy. “Just going to  _ see the gardener off. _ ” 

“Whatever,” Warlock says. 

Crowley gracefully rises from his chair, trips on a video game controller, and grabs the gardener by the open collar of his shirt as he stumbles his way out. Aziraphale looks down at Crowley’s hand gripping his shirt, and then back up to Crowley’s hair. 

“Why not just miracle them in?” 

“Er,” Crowley says, along with a few other syllables. “I don’t know. Never looks quite right.”

“Why even bother, for tonight?” 

“I have to keep up appearances!” He touches his hair again. “You don’t like the curls?” 

“Oh, no, they have their charms. Reminds me of the old times, back when you used to keep it longer. Remember?” 

Aziraphale smiles at him, eyes brimming with the kind of warmth that always makes Crowley wonder if he heard him right that time in the car. He finds that smile a bit confusing, but he smiles back. He’s used to not quite getting where Aziraphale is at. Confusing can be good. Confusing is fine if it means being on the receiving end of a look as warm as the hot curlers against his scalp.

“Yes, I remember.” That hair had gone out of style, but he had an old fondness for it. You don’t forget the haircut you had when you met the first person to really impress you. 

“I only meant your current off-duty hair would have been fine, surely.” Aziraphale waves around his own head. “The little, er, chignon. Also suits you.”

“ _ Chignon _ ?”

“Oh, you know. The bun.” 

Crowley makes a noise. And then another one, and a few more besides, such that when a new sound comes from the ground floor entrance hall, Crowley almost thinks it’s himself. But it’s not his heels clicking towards the stairs. 

“Oh, Satan. The mother’s coming. Scram, would you? I need to tuck Junior in.”

“But I haven’t asked you about—we haven’t discussed—oh, here.” 

Aziraphale takes Crowley by the hand. He then considers Crowley’s hand for a moment, as if admiring a piece of sashimi held aloft between a pair of chopsticks. After this period of admiration passes, Aziraphale ducks down, and presses a kiss to Crowley’s palm. Then, as if questioning his choice, he flips Crowley’s hand over and kisses the top of it as well. 

“Er,” Aziraphale says. “Mon cher. Or, cherie, rather.” 

Crowley breaks through the wall of his own shocked silence to squeak, “The gardener is French?” 

“It’s the language of love,” Aziraphale says matter-of-factly. In a whisper, he adds, “You’re the one who said this would be the cover.” 

“Your French still needs work. And is that why you’ve turned the dial on this look up to eleven?” 

Aziraphale fiddles with the flower through his button-hole. “I have to play the part. I need to look like a real Don Juan, wooing the austere nanny, who has vowed to never love again.”

“Wooing?” Again?

“Yes.” Aziraphale beams. “I imagine someone with her sort of exterior would be a secret romantic, desperately wishing to be wooed. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Her sort of exterior?” Crowley’s voice gets too high at the end. “What about yours? Somehow, I doubt that being a Don whatever involves eyeshadow and mascara, or those breeches. What year do you think it is?” 

Aziraphale runs a hand over his trousers. “Too much?” 

“Never mind. The point is, clandestine meetings on the turf is titillating for the house. K—” Crowley chokes. In the time it has taken them to argue, the heels have reached the top of the stairs. Aziraphale is still clutching his wrist, which makes it easier to pull Aziraphale down the hall, around a rake, and into a nearby storage closet. Once inside, Aziraphale tugs the overhead light on. Crowley turns it off. On, off, on, off—

“Let there be light,” Aziraphale says. 

“You really are a bastard,” Crowley says, and wills it off again. 

The heels click towards the door. Crowley freezes, his hand still over top of Aziraphale’s on the light pull. A shadow grows underneath the door. The shoes pause outside. And then keep walking. 

“Kisses in the boy’s bedroom,” Crowley continues, “as I was saying, are grounds for firing, probably.” 

Aziraphale’s hand, still wrapped in Crowley’s, pulls the light back on. Crowley pulls away.

“It wasn’t in his bedroom,” Aziraphale says. “It was in the hall, and now we’re in a closet. Leave at different times?”

“Yes, fine. I’ll go first. But better wait a bit. Why were you up here anyway?”

“Oh, I forgot!” 

Crowley shushes him. Aziraphale claps a hand over his still agape mouth, his eyes comically wide. Aziraphale always loves a good scheme, Crowley should have remembered. Aziraphale enters into them with gusto and little suspicion. That would explain his enthusiasm for the hand kissing. 

“Is this about the boy?” Crowley asks. “Because he’s just normal. A bit too normal, honestly.” 

Between his fingers, and in a stage whisper, Aziraphale says, “It’s about the garden, actually.”

Oh, right. Watching Aziraphale lounge in the shade as the garden bloomed around him had given Crowley some ideas. He might have wreaked a smidge of havoc. Just a dollop of chaos. Aziraphale needed some excitement in his life, after all. 

“It’s a disaster,” Aziraphale says, “and the garden party is this weekend! Someone has been filling my water canisters with wine—”

“That wily Jesus. Can’t let him be Risen anywhere near—”

“‘—the flower beds are either swamped or parched, nothing is blossoming, the trees are completely off-colour even though it’s not autumn, and there’s a hedge on the east side that positively quivers whenever anyone comes by.” 

“The hedge has a dip in it. We don’t accept that kind of behaviour.” 

“We don’t?” 

“No. It’s despicable.”

“Well, I’m the gardener, and I say I rather like that dip. You should be nicer.” 

Crowley snarls. “Well, I do wish you’d be a better gardener, given the upcoming garden party. And tough luck. I’m not nice.” 

Aziraphale hums. 

“What?”

Aziraphale sighs. “I’m sure it was very mean of you to sing lullabies for our young Warlock whenever he asked.” 

“Those were about pain! And death. And little piggies. And other stuff.” The lullabies are a sensitive subject. How had Aziraphale even heard those?

“Oh, words. What do those matter? Deeds, actions—” 

“This is ridiculous. Can I leave now? Or did you want updates on the boy?”

“I already gave you my update.” Aziraphale motions to Crowley’s hand. “Both sides, so neutral. Nothing to report.” 

“You mean when you—that was—” Crowley feels a flush traveling down from his temples into his cheeks. 

“Isn’t it a good idea for a code? No words even needed.” Aziraphale laughs, nervously. “But you can come up with your own kissing system if you like.”

“Kissing… system…” Crowley repeats, before rushing out of the closet. He slams the door shut, and then slams his foot onto a rake. As the wooden handle sails up, it knocks one of his curlers clean off. The pink curler rolls away down the hall.

“Speaking of deeds,” the closet says, “you should really think your bad ones through a little bit more.”

“I ought to lock you in there,” Crowley says. 

He does not. Instead, he miracles away the rest of the rakes (no return on investment there) and hastily beats the mother to Warlock on her way back from the powder room. After all, he can’t have them cutting more of his hours. By the time she arrives, Warlock is safely hiding under the duvet playing on his phone.

The nanny says, “The gardener let me know he was taking off for the night.”

“Oh,” she says, “I bet he did.” 

The nanny bids her a stern good evening. 

  
  


+

  
  


The Friday evening before the garden party, Crowley finds Aziraphale manically miracling a rose bush. Or what he thinks might have once been a rose bush.

“Working late?” Crowley asks on his way home. He only had to watch Warlock for a bit after school. Fewer and fewer hours. 

“And whose fault do you think that is?” Aziraphale cries, the perfect picture of distress, his linen shirt half untucked from his tan breeches. “The garden party is tomorrow and there’s no garden!”

“Just miracle it, angel. Surely Heaven would approve of the pleasing foliage.”

“I’ve been trying, but I don’t have the right eye! Do you know how hard it is to start from scratch?” Aziraphale holds up a garden magazine, open to the centerfold. “I’ve been going spread by spread.” 

“How terrible.” Crowley plunks down on the nearby bench and lays his arm across the back. 

“If only there were someone, with gardening experience, who could help me.” 

“If only.” 

Aziraphale pouts. Then gasps. 

Crowley loves it when he does that. “What is it, angel?” 

Aziraphale flaps his hands. “The caterer has spotted us! You should leave.” 

“Should I? How are we going to get the garden in tip-top shape if I leave?’

Aziraphale beams. “So you are going to help?” 

“Yes, fine. Twist my rubber arm.” Crowley had harboured hopes of watching Aziraphale spray down the place with Miracle-Gro, but alas. “First we have to deal with the spy unless you want her to witness demonic miracles. Get a hand up my skirt, would you?” 

Aziraphale, who to Crowley’s knowledge is mostly used to doing what he’s told, sits down on the bench, and openly considers Crowley’s lower half. 

“It’s very long, my dear. I’d have to duck under.”

Now that’s an image. 

“Over the skirt then,” Crowley says. “Like a secondary school dance.” 

“It’s like a tent, really. I don’t really know what to do with dresses.” 

Crowley wants to say, “Do I have to wear trousers for you to feel me up?” But he knows that, historically, it hasn’t mattered what he’s wearing and also he’s not sure he wants the answer and this probably counts as going fast. 

But then Crowley doesn’t get much further on that thought because Aziraphale lands a triumphant hand on his upper thigh and then, as if dissatisfied, pulls at the admittedly heavy skirt fabric. The hem of his dress rises from the ground, inch by inch. 

“What are you doing?” Crowley asks, watching the reveal of his silk tights. 

Aziraphale stares at him with an unsettling calmness. He does not break eye contact. “Exactly what you asked.” 

Crowley had said it, yes, but he hadn’t actually considered Aziraphale really doing it. The skirt lifts higher. Up past his knee. Up his thighs. 

Aziraphale’s exquisitely manicured hand—the very same hand that is too holy to touch a book page bare, a hand that was given dominion over a flaming sword only to give it away—cups his silk-clad knee. 

“Is this all right? Crowley?” 

At the same moment, the caterer bangs into one of Aziraphale’s hardiest trees nearby, and Aziraphale shrieks as the nanny’s hat, bow, suit jacket, dress, and silk tights all crumple into a pile. 

“Oi, are you all right over there?” the caterer asks. 

“Oh, yes, yes,” Aziraphale says, “just thought I saw a snake. Hah, hah.”

“You’re just alone out here? With some rags?”

Aziraphale laughs again. “Just trying to get the garden right in time for the party.”

The caterer looks askance at the nearby molting rose bush. “Right.” With the promise of a scene broken, she eventually wanders away, muttering, “Didn’t even get to see anything saucy…”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale whispers to the snake in the grass. “I still need help. Time to turn back, don’t you think?” 

“That’s a garter snake,” Crowley says from the other side of the rose bush. “You think I look like a garter snake?” 

Aziraphale whirls towards him. Crowley  _ had _ changed into a snake, momentarily (he had been startled), but has now returned to his favourite shape and favourite garb. Black leather trousers, a thin looping scarf, button-down, jacket. He kept the curls in. Aziraphale gives him the once over. Crowley loves it when he does that. 

“It was hard to tell,” Aziraphale says. “You do change your looks, you know.” 

“While you stay the same.” 

“That’s not true!” Aziraphale frowns and looks awfully serious, nothing at all like his usual silly expressions. “I do change, Crowley. Overtime. Just slower than you do.”

Crowley doesn’t quite know what that means. 

“I’ve changed a lot over these years spent here in particular,” Aziraphale says. “Crowley, has it occurred to you that this is the most we’ve ever been around one another?”

“It might have crossed my mind.” He’d only been delighting in it for years. 

Aziraphale looks to the rose bush between them and continues as though speaking to himself. “Our meetings were always so spaced out before. I’ve never known you quite so well. Or seen how little anyone notices when we’re near one another.” 

Crowley feels a terrible lightness in his chest. Are they doing this now? He didn’t come prepared. He was just on his way home. He is leaving Aziraphale hanging. What to say? 

“Angel…” Crowley starts. 

“Which is to say,” Aziraphale says, over top of him, “that I doubt anyone will mind if you help me with the garden.” 

Ah. Right then. With the moment popped like a balloon, Crowley twirls a rosebud till it bursts forth into layers of violet petals. 

“Let’s get gardening, shall we?” 

  
  


+

  
  


The garden party must go on and so it does, with tea and champagne and a white tent and many little sandwiches. The little sandwiches are diabolical, the kind of thing Crowley wishes he’d come up with himself. Just enough to whet the appetite, but no matter how many you ate, you always still felt peckish. Not that Crowley hasn’t been on the job, so to speak. The rakes didn’t work out, and the garden isn’t that much of a disaster anymore, no thanks to Aziraphale. But he did come up with something. Crowley couldn’t let the party just go on splendidly, after all. 

As the humans adjust their hats and shade their eyes and duck beneath trees, Aziraphale sidles up to him by the rhododendrons. 

“Is it just me,” Aziraphale says, “or is everyone turning red?” 

Crowley grins. “I rather like red.”

“You sound proud of yourself.” 

“You would be too, if you did the equivalent, in the other direction. It’s not easy raising the UV Index.” 

“I’m sure. How’s it coming through the tent?”

“Poked a lot of little holes in it. It’s as flimsy and holey as a… flimsy thing. A doily?” 

“I suppose that’s why you’re wearing your heavier sunglasses. Really, Crowley.” Aziraphale leaves as quickly as he came. Crowley tries not to be too disappointed. No congratulations, not even a little? He hadn’t been lying, it was a tough job loosening the ozone for one particular area. Why couldn’t Aziraphale appreciate the craftsmanship at least? 

Aziraphale returns sometime later with a bowl and leaves sticking out of his pockets. 

“Good news everyone,” he says, “the aloe in the garden is very fresh!” 

Crowley rolls his eyes. The humans don’t even question that the aloe has already been turned into a gel. Crowley really should have sabotaged the aloe vera. Why was Aziraphale even growing aloe vera? This called for a counter. A counter of the counter. They couldn’t just be even. Time to turn the heat up.

Luke-warm champagne. Sweat-stained satin. Tempers broiling beneath pink, aloe vera coated skin. Aziraphale fussing with an ice bucket, which is hardly the gardener’s job. Crowley goes over to tell him so. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be supervising children, nanny?” Aziraphale says tersely.

Crowley can’t help it; his lips part and his eyes widen beneath their cover because this might be one of those times that a bit more of the bastard comes out, when Crowley feels that they’re not all that different, and maybe this time around Aziraphale will feel it too. 

A party guest whispers to the hostess, “Harriet, I think the tent is disintegrating.” 

Aziraphale looks at Crowley, balefully. “Can’t you turn the heat down a little?” 

A bead of sweat trickles down Crowley’s forehead and into his eye. He resists wiping it away. “Why, getting to be too much for you?”

“Please. I am a being of light, you know, and this isn’t hellfire. Don’t you ever regret inconveniencing yourself?” 

“I’m not. Inconvenienced.” Crowley does wish he’d worn a lighter outfit. The Nanny look is rather heavy. The skirt might have helped some if there weren’t also tights underneath it. Aziraphale looks perfectly comfortable and annoyed with him, which makes Crowley annoyed back. He has to do hellish things to keep hell happy. Doesn’t Aziraphale get that?

Aziraphale walks away from him, again, which is a bad sign, so Crowley follows. He even stays on the dirt path. The end goal of this trip becomes clear soon enough: the gardening shed. The shed is about the size of an elevator with a maximum capacity of six people, and Crowley doesn’t remember it being here previously. 

“Why are you following me instead of the children?” Aziraphale says over his shoulder.

“There’s only one child at this party and he’s babysat well enough by his phone.” 

Aziraphale tries to close the shed door on him, but Crowley wiggles in. He has to become pancake-thin at one point, which is uncomfortable, but he manages. Crowley spies the pile of parasols in the corner before Aziraphale can get to them. 

“Oh, angel,” Crowley says, “don’t you know I’m just going to poke a million holes through them too?”

Aziraphale turns on him. “You wouldn’t dare! I only just made them appear.” 

Crowley is about to tell him how much he  _ would  _ dare when voices drift in from outside. 

“Honey, the German Attaché is about to die of heatstroke. Where are you going?” It’s the American Attaché Husband-Man and Adoptive Father of the Antichrist. 

“If you must know, I saw the gardener and the nanny go off this way.” And the Mother of the Antichrist. Wonderful. “I want to see what they’re up to! I mean, that  _ nanny _ . I feel like I have to see it with my own eyes...” 

“Don’t know why you’re so hung up on her. She’s a bit sexy if you ask me.” 

Crowley turns to Aziraphale, grinning. Aziraphale rolls his eyes. Crowley peers out the shed window: the American Woman is hitting her husband in the shoulder. 

“Come on! It’s the gardener that makes me think you’re dead wrong. Too much of a pansy. Not much of a man’s man, is he?”

Aziraphale’s mouth forms a perfect circle. “That’s  _ the _ pansy, to you!” 

“Shh,” Crowley says, but he’s delighted. 

The bluster leaves Aziraphale as soon as it came. His face quickly crumples in on itself. “But I put so much effort into my role! Just because I’m—effeminate—doesn’t mean I can’t be a Don Juan—” 

A lop-sided smile tugs at Crowley’s mouth. He melts. “Of course, angel.” 

“Well! We’ll show him!”

“Yes, yes, of course—will we?”

“Yes, using your idea,” Aziraphale says with a strange look in his eyes. A glint. 

The American humans choose that moment to peer in at the shed’s window, at last spotting them inside, and suddenly Aziraphale’s nose is against Crowley’s cheek. A delicate hand tugs one of his curls loose and twirls it between two fingers. 

Crowley makes a sound, not unlike a  _ meep _ . 

“Better try my best to be extra convincing, hm?” Aziraphale says, nosing across his jawline. 

The next sound Crowley makes is not one that humans are capable of producing. If he had to describe it, he’d go with a cross between a wild turkey and an anaconda. If this is a performance, Crowley’s contribution is the noises and not much else. That is until Aziraphale’s lips find Crowley’s Adam’s apple, which is disgustingly symbolic of something or other, and one of Crowley’s legs kicks out and bangs into the wall. 

The Americans scamper off.

Crowley hopes Aziraphale won’t notice the audience is gone, or that he’ll notice the audience is gone, and keep going anyway. 

Aziraphale stops. 

“They’ve gone, have they?” Aziraphale says. 

“Yes,” Crowley says, stupidly. At some point, Aziraphale had loosened Crowley’s bow and opened the first few buttons of his blouse, and Aziraphale is staring at that patch of skin. Crowley peers down at it himself. Some chest hair. Not much to write home about. 

Aziraphale clears his throat, and looks around in a thousand different directions at once, anywhere other than Crowley. He takes a step back, fussing with the collar of his shirt. 

“Suppose I got a little carried away, and I should, erm—” Aziraphale gathers all the parasols up in his arms and heads out without so much as a look back at him. Crowley does not often need to breathe, but currently finds he requires many deep lungfuls of air. Like the Dowlings, he had bought it. For a minute there, he might have believed it was true. 

Crowley is going to set those damn umbrellas on fire. But when he steps out of the shed, Aziraphale opens a white parasol over the top of his head and gives him a little smile. 

“Allow me,” Aziraphale says. “You’re getting too hot.” 

“How kind.” Crowley bats it away from him.

“Really, I think your costume might be a bit too heavy for this. You could always turn down the heat.”

“Not happening.” Crowley focuses on retying his bow. He leaves the buttons of the blouse open, in the event that Aziraphale stops averting his eyes. 

“Crowley, I—” Aziraphale sighs. “Meet later tonight?” 

Crowley grunts. 

For the rest of the day, Crowley furiously naps beneath the tree with oddly orange leaves. The Nanny costume is in truth too heavy for the current heat; his blouse loses more and more buttons as the afternoon wears on. He’s sick of Nanny, sick of the curlers, sick of the Affair, sick of the entire Arrangement. He remains distantly aware of Aziraphale cooling people off and accepting compliments on the splendour of the garden. If Crowley receives any credit for his hand in its creation, he doesn’t hear it. 

  
  
  


+

  
  


They do meet later that night in the garden under the orange tree. Or, well, Aziraphale is sitting on a bench under the tree. Crowley has moved up into it. 

“Come down from there, please,” Aziraphale says.

“I shan’t.” 

“Please, Crowley. For me?” 

Crowley descends into their meeting, holding his black umbrella overhead with pride, his open blouse fluttering in the breeze. Crowley had shed much of his Nanny outfit like a snakeskin. The blouse hangs on only by the sleeves. The skirt was dumped in the tree. Crowley comes down wearing the hat, the scarlet nanny bow, silk tights, sunglasses, and nothing else. Well, besides the nipple piercings. But other than that, nothing else.

While rage-sleeping, Crowley might have obsessed over Aziraphale’s earlier preoccupation with that bit of his exposed chest, and his refusal to look his way again after that. Crowley might have decided to up the ante. “You can’t avoid looking at someone’s chest when there are nipple rings” was an idiom somewhere, probably. 

“Oh, good Lord,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley lands gently on the lawn. “You’re the one who said my costume was too heavy.” 

“You’re practically nude, Crowley. What has happened to your hair?” 

“Needed a change.” During his fit of pique, sometime between sleeping under the tree and sitting up in it, Crowley had gone for a closer crop. Unlike curling, it was easy to miracle short hair. Not much finesse required. “What, you don’t like it?”

“I’ll get used to it, of course. But how will you be Nanny like that?”

Crowley sniffs. “Maybe I’m over being Nanny.” 

“Is something wrong?” 

“I told you. Warlock hasn’t asked me to sing to him in a long time. He won’t need a nanny soon. I suppose that’s all just part of growing up.”

“Oh, Crowley. You knew he had to grow up eventually, and we’d have to move on from this. Is that what’s bothering you?” There’s a hint to that question, the suggestion that Aziraphale knows what Crowley’s really miffed about, but wants him to say it. 

Crowley shrugs and closes the umbrella. It’s true that he hadn’t wanted to move on. Aziraphale was right about one thing: they’d never spent so much time together before. And the kid had been all right. He’d liked it here, for a spell, until it became clear that only nannies and gardeners got to have passions. Not angels and demons. 

“I like kids,” Crowley says, to his own surprise. Well. Better to spill that kind of truth instead of the other kind. 

It’s an easier answer. When Crowley sits down on the bench, Aziraphale reaches over and pats his hand. Crowley’s afraid Aziraphale will say something else, something that will acknowledge it all too much and ruin it, but he doesn’t. 

“I’m somewhat grown-up, you know, and I think I’d like someone to sing me a lullaby,” Aziraphale says. “No one ever has, I don’t think. Sounds like a lovely thing.” Aziraphale laughs a little in self-deprecation, and Crowley feels as though someone has just gouged the leather seat covers in his Bentley. Like he’s about to start singing. 

Crowley clears his throat. He can’t think of the right words, the right song. His usual fare isn’t right for an angel. After all, whenever Crowley tempts Aziraphale, Aziraphale sees right through him. So Crowley starts with a hum. His usual tune. Not sure where he got it from. Not Queen, anyway. 

“That’s beautiful, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “You’re very good at this.” 

Crowley flushes, and hums a bit louder, chest-puffing out. The top of Aziraphale’s head drifts towards him until eventually a soft weight lands on his shoulder. Crowley keeps humming as he dips his own head to the side, his cheek brushing Aziraphale’s forehead and a tuft of tawny hair. Aziraphale sighs, like resting against one another is the loveliest feeling in the world. Crowley looks down at their hands on the bench, inches apart. His lullaby gets stuck in his throat. 

“You like this you know,” Crowley says. “You do.” 

“The lullaby? Yes, my dear boy. I like it very much.”

“Not that. I mean, you like this.”

Aziraphale, who is looking down towards Crowley’s bare chest, says, “Nipple piercings?”

“No. Yes.” Crowley mumbles. Murmurs. Clears his throat. Comes out with it. “This, us. Me. You like me. And my favourite shape.”

“I like all your shapes.” Aziraphale’s head comes up, away from Crowley’s cheek, and he looks torn, much the way he did after he gave away a sword. “Crowley. We work at cross purposes.”

“That’s a non-sequitur. Still hanging onto Heaven, I see.” 

And then Aziraphale comes out with it. Crowley doesn’t quite know why. Maybe because they’re whispering, maybe because Crowley hummed to him, and maybe because they’ve been up to all kinds of things and no hammer has come down on them as of yet, Aziraphale says, “Maybe I do.” 

“Ngh,” Crowley says. 

“Maybe I like you too much to get you into trouble.” 

Crowley twists on the bench, one leg folding up, and pulls off his sunglasses. After all that garden party heat, the air is cool on Crowley’s skin and his nipples perk and he’s feeling some kind of way and maybe that’s why he says, “You do! You do like it, all of it. None of this has been for show has it? Not really! We didn’t need to do  _ code _ , you didn’t need to woo my hand, and the trouble _ is _ worth it, don’t you see that?” 

“Crowley, please, the point is that it’s not worth them hurting you—”

“The trouble could be worth _ all of it _ .” Crowley is snarling. He’s too worked up and he knows it, he needs to leave, so he uncurls from the bench and struggles to open the umbrella to fly away, but Aziraphale grabs him by the waist of his tights. 

Crowley lands in Aziraphale’s lap. Which he straddles. Only to be cooperative, of course. 

“No one is paying attention anymore,” Crowley says as if he hadn’t been moments from running away. “If they were paying attention, they would have done something already. Now, before your guilt or whatever takes over, I think you’ll notice there’s no skirt to get under this time.” 

Aziraphale voice lowers. “Yes, I might have noticed that.” 

“Then keep noticing,” Crowley says, “and don’t look away.” 

“It’s not that I want to look away.” Aziraphale sighs. A bad sign. “I do feel guilt, Crowley, prematurely, if something were to happen to you, due to the—the things that I want, and—” 

Crowley tilts his pelvis and grinds down. Aziraphale stops talking. 

“Yes, well. It might all end.” Crowley rolls his hips. “And if it does, I’ll want to have done this, at least once.” 

Aziraphale reaches for his face, and Crowley thinks he’s going to push him away, that Aziraphale is going to knock him onto the grass, but Aziraphale only brushes his cheek. Looking into his eyes, Aziraphale gently touches the snake tattoo below his ear. Crowley wonders what his eyes show, if Aziraphale can gather anything from subtle changes in yellow, vertical slits. That’s the trouble with always hiding behind something else; you get no practice at protection without the outside help. 

“You mean,” Aziraphale says, “you’ve never?” 

At least Crowley can read Aziraphale’s darkening eyes. All pupil. All for Crowley. 

“You see,” Crowley says, “I’m really not very fast at all.”

Aziraphale’s mouth falls open. He doesn’t say anything, which could be a bad sign, but then he sits up. Straight back, stern expression, eyebrows crowding in to meet each other like old friends. Then Aziraphale takes Crowley’s jaw in his two soft hands and tugs him down and kisses him. And kisses him. 

Aziraphale’s mouth is delicate, tender, and  _ open,  _ and there’s a tongue against his lips, and Crowley lets it in. Things get foggy after that. Crowley drifts. He feels decadent with his bare chest out, the evening air cool on his piercings, and as if reading his mind, fingertips brush over a metal ring. Crowley nearly shouts. Aziraphale draws back. 

“Oh, my dear boy.” Aziraphale lowers his head to mouth at his right nipple. Crowley hisses. 

“The sounds you’re making,” Aziraphale says. “Is that a good snake noise, or bad?” 

“The good kind, good, do  _ not  _ stop, I swear to someone.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t stop and Crowley feels like he might fly to pieces. He gets more active. He runs a hand over Aziraphale’s chest and slips two fingers between his linen shirt buttons into a small patch of hair. Crowley shoves the suspenders off his shoulders, pops open the next three buttons, and there’s chest hair, for yes, fine,  _ God’s  _ sake, and he runs his fingers through it and then it’s Aziraphale who’s making sounds like he’s found a particularly rare edition of a prophecy book. 

“You really are very good,” Aziraphale says. “In the worst kind of way, if that softens the blow.”

Crowley would normally be sensitive about that kind of comment, but right now he thinks he understands.

“And you’re very bad,” Crowley says, “in the best kind of way.” 

“I suppose I am. Are you really going to keep that hat on? And the bow?”

“Oh, yes, yes I am.” 

Talking is hard, Crowley thinks, so he focuses on getting Aziraphale out of his trousers. Breeches, really. Aziraphale really did take the part seriously. A real Don Juan in the end. 

Aziraphale tugs at the waist of his tights again, lightly, as if unsure. Breathlessly, he says, “They’re very thin.”

Crowley likes where this is going. “Yes, angel. They are.”

“I wonder, if I might, if I could, if I may—”

And so Aziraphale finally follows through on “getting a hand up his skirt,” if by “skirt” you meant tights and if by “get a hand up” you meant ripping them open at the crotch. 

At the reveal, Aziraphale says, “Oh, lovely,” with a sigh. When it came to choosing a favourite shape, Crowley had wanted it all and had equipped himself with the options available. Aziraphale doesn’t seem particularly surprised. He takes Crowley’s cock with a delicate grip while his other hand slips further back. “Oh, my dear,” he says as if it’s a divine experience. “You’re so wet for me.” 

It’s easy from there. So easy Crowley has to wonder why they had to wait so long, but then supposedly it _is_ effortful for an angel. But Aziraphale is currently making a great deal of effort. He’s providing a very nice, firm cock to ride, and even though Crowley is doing all the work of raising and lowering himself, again and again, his thighs burning, even though Aziraphale looks up at him somewhat lost and speechless, Crowley cries, “Fuck yeah, give it to me—”

And Aziraphale, fusspot dandy that he is,  _ groans,  _ and does. He does, by hanging onto Crowley so tightly Crowley feels like he’ll fly to pieces if Aziraphale lets go, like his body will disintegrate in the heat like a parasol with a million holes poked through it, and then Aziraphale plants his feet in the dirt beneath them. Even though they’re in the midst of things, the first thrust shocks him. Crowley nearly loses his balance, toppling towards the backseat of the bench, but Aziraphale catches his shoulder, doesn’t let him fall, not hard, and Crowley grabs one of those lovely thighs just in time to right himself. Aziraphale thrusts up into him again. And again. 

Crowley uses his hold on the back of the bench as leverage as he resumes rising and falling onto Aziraphale’s cock, but now Aziraphale is present, in the moment, meeting him thrust for thrust, pistoning up into him with more force and desperation than Crowley could have ever imagined, not even in his off-hand imaginings. Aziraphale tells him that he’s good, so good, so very good, and so very wicked, like he can’t decide, or maybe they can be true at once, while he returns to the ring through Crowley’s nipple, rubbing with thumb and forefinger, and at last, pinching. Crowley gasps, held by those delicate, exquisitely manicured hands. 

Aziraphale swears. Fuck, bugger, buggering fuck, all kinds. Multiple languages. Crowley has never heard him swear before. It makes him feel wild and wanted, and when Aziraphale grips him by his gyrating out of rhythm hips and grinds him down onto his cock, he’s never been more turned on in his life. Crowley arches his back, deliciously, and he feels himself pouring out from every place that he can. At the same time, Aziraphale unfurls. Crowley wouldn’t quite know how to describe it, even if he had the presence of mind to pay full attention, but he is vaguely aware of spinning circles, and the feeling of being watched by many, many eyes. 

When it’s over, Aziraphale kisses his cheek, and says, “Darling, your wings.” 

Black feathers mingle with out of season autumn leaves around them. Crowley draws those back in. He pants into blond hair. Sweet hands rub over his back. Eventually, he climbs off, not unlike getting off a horse, and with the same general feeling left in the body. He’s about to say something to that effect when he realizes they have an audience. 

In the garden with them, a few feet away, the American Ambassador married couple, who hired them to be a nanny and a gardener, are standing in shocked silence. 

The Adoptive Mother of the Antichrist says, “You’re both fired.” 

  
  


+

  
  


Some things happen after that. A lot of things, really. They lose their jobs with the Dowlings, and then also with the Authorities, which was somewhat inevitable if not ineffable, and then they stop the world from ending, sort of, and then also avoid permanent death by wearing each others’ faces. All of which is good news, overall, but prior to losing their supernatural jobs, angels had started dropping in on Aziraphale unannounced and demons had started trailing Crowley and, well. 

The two of them hadn’t been able to talk much, and the hand-kissing code wouldn’t have gone over well. Things had gotten weird and distant between them. There had been bigger fish to fry, like preventing Armeggedon after the Affair had thoroughly distracted them from the fact that the boy had been a normal boy all along. 

When they switch back to being themselves, in every sense of the concept, Crowley thinks they’ll pick things up from where they left off. But after lunch at the Ritz, Aziraphale isn’t his gardener self. He’s cagey. Hedging. Scheming, one might even say. Aziraphale is up to something. 

Crowley had assumed they had an Understanding, that things would come together as smooth as anything after all the stuff and things had settled down. Only, every day since the settling of things, Crowley had called Aziraphale and been given the same, odd, evasive answers. It reminded Crowley of when Aziraphale had deigned not to tell him about the Agnes Nutter book.

So when Crowley gets a call on his private line several days after the first day of the rest of the world, he is expecting an Aziraphale scheme. He isn’t expecting the person on the other end of the line to be asking for a nanny. 

“Er, not in the business anymore I’m afraid,” Crowley says. “How’d you get this number?”

The American Woman (Who Was In Fact Never the Mother of the Antichrist) says, “The gardener is back. If that has any bearing at all…”

“The—the gardener,” Crowley says. 

“I told him our front begonias were lost without him,” the American Woman says. 

Of course. Aziraphale wouldn’t have the heart to say no. 

Crowley, who remembers Aziraphale’s gardening skills, says, “And why would you tell him that?” Crowley tries to recall how much he tampered with the Dowlings’ memories. “Why would you want us back after the uh...” 

“Oh, a bit of canoodling on the job. Water under the bridge!” She lowers her voice. “It’s been dreadfully boring. The Secret Service never get up to anything good.” 

Right, a lot of haziness in the memories then. 

“Does your husband know you’re—” Crowley stops himself. Who cares about the husband? “Sorry, the gardener gave you my number?” 

“That’s right.” The woman drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Whatever he did, I think he wants to make amends. You know. Rekindle things on the old stomping ground. Did you have a falling out?” 

“Rekindle,” Crowley murmurs. 

“He’s been working out back for the past few days. I swear the garden’s never looked this good.” The American Woman continues to talk, but Crowley doesn’t hear the rest. He’s already on his way to the car. 

  
  


+

  
  


When Crowley arrives, he sees what the American Woman meant. The begonias are atrocious. Crowley heads around the side of the house, towards the rear garden. He hasn’t bothered to play dress up. The humans saw him as Nanny even when he was mostly naked with wings coming out of his back mid-orgasm. Trousers, a jacket, and snakeskin shoes probably won’t raise any alarm bells. 

He did, however, grow out his hair on the car ride over. The shorter look had served its time. As Crowley walks over the grass, he pulls it back into a half-bun. 

Warlock, who is sitting on the ledge of a ground floor window, nods at him. Crowley nods back. 

“Still getting up to everyday evil, son?” Crowley asks. 

“I guess,” Warlock says. “Your boyfriend’s out back.” 

“Good talk.” 

Warlock might be an okay kid after all. Aziraphale is out back, standing underneath an arbour filled with shiny, healthy, lustrous leaves and orchids. Specifically, a mix of soft, white blooms, and black, bell-shaped, bat orchids, reaching upward. 

“Hi,” Aziraphale says. He’s dressed as the second gardener again. Crowley kind of likes that. 

“Hullo,” Crowley says. “You did this yourself?” 

“Yes! It seemed like the right sort of gesture. We haven’t—had a chance—talking about it has been—dangerous. But now that we’ve given the Authorities the slip, and they’re worried about other things…”

Aziraphale looks up at him through his lashes with a smile, and Crowley smiles back. They stay like that, shifting their weight on their heels and beaming at each other. 

Until the American Attaché Husband-Man walks towards them with an expression that suggests his wife did not tell him that the two of them had been re-hired. The Secret Service follows after him in a pack. 

“Do I have to kick you two out again? Do we need a sign saying no more illicit affairs on our property?” 

“No affair has ever occurred on these grounds,” Aziraphale declares with gravitas. Aziraphale then produces rings, which are odd to look at. Almost painful. One is black onyx with an etching around the thin band and which vaguely resembles Crowley’s nipple ring. The other ring glows. That’s all there is to it. Crowley imagines a human wouldn’t be able to look at it for more than a few seconds. Aziraphale slips the glowing one onto Crowley’s finger. 

“You see,” Aziraphale says, “we were already married.” 

The Secret Service lets out a collective gasp. 

“You mean you met while working here and got hitched?” an agent in the front asks. 

“ _ Uhhhnnnn? _ ” Crowley says. “We, er—we what?” 

“No,” Aziraphale says. “Before that.”

“How did you propose?” another agent asks. Crowley has lost track. 

“Oh, I didn’t,” Aziraphale says. “Nanny here did.” 

“You call her Nanny?” the American Attaché Husband-Man says. 

“It was in Soho with a bottle of 1921 Châteauneuf-du-Pape,” Aziraphale continues, “and Nanny asked me if we would be parents together.”

“Weird way to pop the question,” Husband-Man says. 

“Yes, it took me a moment to understand what Nanny meant as well, but I think I’ve got it now?”

“You, you, _uhhnn_,” Crowley says. 

The American Woman (Who Was In Fact Never the Mother of the Antichrist) leans on her palm on the ledge of a first-floor window and lets out a long, happy sigh. 

“You two not being married to each other was never actually the issue,” the Husband-Man says. 

“Do you mind?” Crowley snaps. “I’m having a moment here!” He then remembers that he can freeze time. So he does. Till it’s just the two of them. 

Aziraphale wrings his hands. “Is the audience too much? It’s too much. I just thought, you know, the location! I felt like there needed to be some kind of gesture. After our long separation.” 

“The location holds some significance, yes,” Crowley says, still somewhat dazed. “Couldn’t you just have called me? On the phone?”

“Did I get it wrong?” Aziraphale’s face crumples up. “I’m sorry, I’ve over thought it. Have I jumped it? Is this too fast?”

“Fast,” Crowley says, deliriously. “Are you wearing my nipple ring?” 

Aziraphale holds it up, looking very pleased with himself. “Oh, I wasn’t sure that would come through. That was the inspiration. There’s also a snake on it! They could just be starter rings. Promise rings? Do you like them?”

“They’re horrendous,” Crowley says. “Absolutely hideous, I can’t even look at mine. And I love them. Let’s get the hell out of here.” 

Aziraphale beams. “Oh, oh good. Splendid!” 

After a quick kiss and a few longs ones, and another few quick ones, with time standing still, the nanny and the gardener, née demon and angel, leave the garden. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> name the Lana Del Rey reference to win a prize, where the prize is understanding Crowley's Lana energies


End file.
